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A Toxics-Free Future

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Highlights Front Roll

BRS COP 2025
Semia Gharbi Wins Goldman Environmental Prize!
Plastics Treaty INC-5
Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals: Threats to Human Health
Chemical Recycling: A Dangerous Deception
See StopPoisonPlastic.org - our website on toxic plastics
New Report: The Arctic’s Plastic Crisis
Countries fail to agree on the intent of a Science-Policy Panel, leaving health and the environment at risk from corporate polluters

Punta del Este, Uruguay - Today governments agreed to the adoption of an Intergovernmental Science-Policy Panel on Chemicals, Waste and Pollution (a science-to-policy panel or SPP) to address toxic threats from hazardous chemicals and waste. There are expectations that this Panel will enhance action to address threats from hazardous chemicals and waste. However, the lack of inclusion of civil society in all aspects of the Panel's work, a democratic function needed to ensure transparency, and the postponement of the adoption of a policy to protect the Panel’s work from influence by corporate polluters could lead to distrust in the Panel’s work and are a major cause for concern.

In addition, governments failed to agree on the intent of the panel, leaving open the nature of the panel’s basic purpose and activities. Despite a UNEA mandate stating, “...that the sound management of chemicals and waste is crucial for the protection of human health and the environment,” countries assembled could not agree that protection of health and the environment would be included in the panel’s purpose. 

“Increased visibility, awareness and action on toxic chemicals and waste is urgently needed. However, having a science panel intended to equip environmental policy makers without a mission to protect the environment and health is like establishing a panel on pediatrics that can’t consider children,” said Sara Brosché, PhD, an IPEN Science Advisor. “In addition, not ensuring transparency will threaten the credibility of the Panel. It’s a shame that a few countries were able to obstruct a more ambitious and inclusive foundation of the Panel and unfortunately, as consensus will remain for decision-making, we can expect more of this kind of underhanded manipulation of the process going forward.” 

Cameroon, Morocco and Switzerland call on the Rotterdam Convention to Add Lead Chromates to the List of Toxic Chemicals Requiring Advance Notice for Exports

Goteborg, Sweden-Today, IPEN welcomed the notification from the Swiss government calling on the Rotterdam Convention to address the toxic trade in lead chromates, chemicals used as the main pigments used in making lead-based paints. Chemicals listed under the Convention are subject to a Prior Informed Consent (PIC) procedure, whereby exporting countries must notify recipient countries and receive explicit consent before the substance can be exported. Last year, Cameroon became the first country to call for such controls and was soon followed by Morocco. With countries from two regions now calling for the listing, the proposal is on the path to be on the agenda at the next Conference of Parties (COP-13) in 2027.  

An IPEN study released last year during International Lead Poisoning Prevention Week documented the ongoing trade in lead chromates, noting the double standards of countries that have banned lead paint domestically but continue to produce and sell lead chromates for export. For example, the report notes that though the EU has essentially banned the use of lead chromates for paint, it continues to export lead chromates to as many as 48 countries, putting the recipient countries’ children and families at risk.

The initial call for regulations under the Rotterdam Convention by Cameroon followed a report by the IPEN member group Centre de Recherche et d’Education pour le Développement (CREPD) in Yaoundé, Cameroon following a regulation compliance check study in 2023, which found lead paints are still widely sold in markets in the country despite lead paint being banned in Cameroon since 2017. “Our experience shows that we need global controls on the trade in lead chromates to protect our children and families,” said Gilbert Kuepouo, Executive Director of CREPD. “Information on imports of lead chromates is vital for Cameroon to enforce our country’s lead paint ban. We encourage all Parties to the Convention to support this proposal at the next COP.”

“Hazardous chemicals like lead chromates should never be sent across borders without the knowledge of the recipients. The Rotterdam Convention provides a common-sense tool that gives countries the information they need to decide about imports of this toxic chemical, which poses significant hazards to children and adults, in particular to paint industry workers in their countries,” said Sara Brosché, PhD, IPEN’s Science Advisor and author of the 2024 report on the trade in lead chromates. “We welcome the call by Cameroon, Morocco, and Switzerland and look forward to advancing this urgent proposal to protect children’s health around the world.”

The Stockholm Convention added the toxic plastic chemical group medium-chain chlorinated paraffins to its list of globally banned substances but also reopened a previous ban for the first time, with potentially dire consequences for our health.

Geneva-Today, the Stockholm Convention Conference of Parties (COP) agreed that the large group of toxic industrial chemicals known as medium-chain chlorinated paraffins (MCCPs) are among the world’s most hazardous substances (known as persistent organic pollutants or POPs) and should be listed for global elimination. MCCPs are among the highest production volume chemicals in the world and are used widely in plastics, including in toys, flooring, kitchenware, and other products, and in metal working fluids.

IPEN welcomes the decision to ban the large chemical group of MCCPs but warns that the long list of exemptions will perpetuate harm and result in large volumes of hazardous wastes to be produced for decades to come. 

Unfortunately, the COP also for the first time in its history reopened a previous decision, allowing new exemptions on its 2023 ban of a highly toxic substance, the plastic chemical UV-328. The COP’s decision caves to industry influence, disregards its mission and precedents, and favors the interests of industry over its stated objective of protecting human health and the environment.

IPEN strongly criticized the COP’s decision to allow new exemptions to its 2023 ban on UV-328. This unprecedented action will allow ongoing pollution and global contamination by this chemical that in animal studies has been linked to damage to the liver and kidneys, endocrine disruption, and bioaccumulation.

“The chemicals governed by the Convention are the most hazardous substances on the planet – once the science has demonstrated that they pose unacceptable threats to our health and the environment, the decision to eliminate them should not be revised. By allowing new exemptions for a previously banned substance, the COP is jeopardizing the integrity of the Convention, undermining its scientific basis, and betraying its mission to protect human health and the environment,” said IPEN Science Advisor Therese Karlsson, Ph.D.

Stockholm Convention lists chlorpyrifos and long-chain PFCAs for global elimination

Geneva-Today, the Stockholm Convention Conference of Parties (COP) agreed that the toxic pesticide chlorpyrifos and the group of long-chain perfluorocarboxylic acids (LC-PFCAs) meet the Convention criteria as persistent organic pollutants (POPs) and added them to the list of globally banned substances. IPEN welcomed the movement as an important step for global health and praised the increasing drive to list groups of chemicals that have similar harmful properties – rather than listing chemicals one at a time, a time-consuming process that can leave people and the environment at risk.

IPEN Steering Committee member is the fourth IPEN leader to win the "Environmental Nobel Prize"

Watch the Goldman Prize video of Semia and see her acceptance speech here.

Health risks from toxic farm chemicals paraquat, chlorpyrifos, and phorate prompt immediate nationwide ban as global community calls for phasing out all HHPs by 2035

Kathmandu, Nepal - The Center for Public Health and Environmental Development (CEPHED) and the International Pollutants Elimination Network (IPEN) welcome the decision by the government of Nepal last week to ban three highly hazardous pesticides (HHPs) long linked to serious health and environmental concerns. The production, sale, use, and trade of three farm chemicals, chlorpyrifos, phorate, and paraquat is banned immediately, according to the decision by the country’s Pesticide Management Committee.

The Nepali decision follows the September 2023 founding of the Global Framework on Chemicals (GFC), which initiated a collaborative Global Alliance on HHPs, with a goal of phasing out all HHPs by 2035. The health risks of the three pesticides banned by Nepal are indicative of the risks from HHPs:

“We have long worked to document the health and environmental threats from these harmful farm chemicals, so we fully support and applaud the decision to protect public health and the environment with this strong regulation,” said Ram Charitra Sah, Executive Director and Environmental Scientist at CEPHED. “By banning these chemicals, Nepal is leading the global community and fulfilling our national obligation toward the realization of the new GFC policy on HHPs and the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs). We expect prompt and assertive implementation of this ban throughout Nepal.”

IPEN develops policy documents on the meeting agenda and emerging issues, as well as briefing papers, reports, and other materials.for each of he Plastics Treaty negotiating sessions. For the INC-5 meeting in Busan, Korea our materials include:

  • IPEN's reactions to the Chair's non paper;
  • IPEN Quick Views
  • Briefings on the industry's fake recycling math, why a "products only" approach will not protect health from toxic plastic chemicals, and how refuse derived fuel creates a hidden trade in plastic waste.
  • Our Plastic FAQs and briefing on how a Plastics Treaty can address hazardous plastic chemicals.

Find links to all of these reosurces and more on our INC-5 page.

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